“You will get nothing but two hundred pennies,” said the rich man.
“I won’t touch one of them,” said Simon Agricola, and off he marched in a huff.
But Babo had kept his eyes open. Simon Agricola had laid down the vial upon the table, and while they were saying this and that back and forth, thinking of nothing else, Babo quietly slipped it into his own pocket, without any one but himself being the wiser.
Down the stairs stumped the doctor with Babo at his heels. There stood the cook waiting for them.
“Look,” said he, “my wife is sick in there; won’t you cure her, too?”
“Pooh!” said Simon Agricola; and out he went, banging the door behind him.
“Look, friend,” said Babo to the cook, “here I have some of the same medicine. Give me the two hundred pennies that the master would not take, and I’ll cure her for you as sound as a bottle.”
“Very well,” said the cook, and he counted out the two hundred pennies, and Babo slipped them into his pocket. He bade the woman open her mouth, and when she had done so he poured all the stuff down her throat at once.
“Ugh!” said she, and therewith rolled up her eyes, and lay as stiff and dumb as a herring in a box.
When the cook saw what Babo had done, he snatched up the rolling-pin and made at him to pound his head to a jelly. But Babo did not wait for his coming; he jumped out of the window, and away he scampered with the cook at his heels.